Nicole Scherzinger has told of the "miserable" and "dark time" in which she battled an eating disorder.

The singer and former X Factor judge, 36, told Cosmopolitan magazine how she struggled with bulimia for eight years while touring the world as a Pussycat Doll before finally getting help.

Nicole, who went public with her bulimia struggle in 2012, said: "It is such a horrible paralysing disease and it was such a dark time for me. That's why I can empathise so much with people who have demons and voices in their heads, who aren't nice to themselves.

"It robs you of living your life. But you can recover and you can get rid of it forever. I did it and that's why it's so important for me to share my story.

"I felt so alone... but I made myself so alone. You hide it from the world, you isolate yourself."

Nicole told how she finally got help.

"I had started losing my voice, I couldn't sing at shows, and then I remember my manager finding me passed out on the floor in Malta or in the south of France," she told Cosmo.

"I thought, 'I'm going to lose everything I love if I don't love myself.' One day when you feel like you've reached the end, you just say, 'I'm not doing this any more.' It's sad to see how I wasted my life.

"I had such a great life on the outside, the Dolls were on top of the world but I was miserable on the inside. I'm never letting that happen again; you only get one life - I was 27 only once."

She said that her on-again relationship with Formula 1 racer Lewis Hamilton was "crazy romantic".

"Relationships are hard and having to hold a long-distance relationship is even harder ... But I'm good and I'm happy," she said.